Recently, it has been suggested (and many researchers are investigating) to use Information Centric Networking (ICN) approaches and concepts as a baseline technology for enabling communication in Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) type scenarios, in particular disaster scenarios (cf. J. Seedorf et al.: “Using ICN in disaster scenarios; draft-seedorf-icn-disaster-02”, ICNRG Internet-Draft, Jun. 27, 2014, http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-seedorf-icn-disaster-02). In such a scenario, so-called ICN data mules (that carry and disseminate data times) may move randomly, and each time data mules encounter one another they may exchange data items. It is envisioned that in such a scenario where there is no connectivity, data mules (e.g. vehicles or drones) can move around randomly. So these data mules act as kind of mobile routers, which can interact with end users, working base stations and other data mules to fetch and deliver the data and queries. Thus, the present invention does not consider ad hoc networks where paths to a destination can be built reactively or proactively, but a DTN or DTN like scenario, as described for instance in V. Cerf et al.: “Delay-Tolerant Networking Architecture”, RFC 4838, April 2007.
FIG. 1 shows such an exemplary disaster scenario, where data mules R (rescue teams) may move around in and across different fragmented networks. For better understanding, consider a large scale disaster scenario like the earthquake in Japan in 2011, where people in different parts of the city are stranded without the internet connectivity. But there are some zones, where base stations are still working and providing connectivity.
With ICN, two different types of messages exist: a) interests for content (expressed via a name)—ICN interest messages or requests—, and b) the actual data items to match a given interest. Essentially, the scenario is such that ICN data mules move randomly across a geographic area and, when meeting/encountering end-users, they receive interests (for content) from them and also forward corresponding data items to end-users (if present in the content store/cache of the data mule). At the same time, when data mules encounter each other, they forward to each other certain end-user interests and/or data items (according to a predefined rule-set and algorithm), such that interests and data items can be forwarded in a hop-by-hop DTN fashion.